Is the federal government our friend?

The current economic crisis is relatively unique in that its causes cannot be traced to natural calamities, famines or even wars. We have not been hit by a meteoroid from outer space. Another powerful nation has not attacked us. We are not experiencing the effects of the third or fourth year of continuous drought.

We are suffering, however, from vanity, greed and an outright disregard for the laws of God and of man.

The Bush administration spent money as if it was irrelevant. To their credit, they did try to warn the Democratic Congress that they had to stop turning a deaf ear toward questionable practices of lending institutions. This was a warning that top Democrats could only see as a racist attempt to deny housing "rights" to their protected classes.

President Barack Obama now is consolidating control by ramming policies in over any opposition, programs that will drive our children and grandchildren into economic servitude.

None of the current "crisis" is necessary. None of this had to happen.

Most of it is a result of the stupidity and corruption of the power elite.

Many of us began to see a pattern several years ago. First there was the immigration fiasco. It became obvious that the leaders of the United States had no intention of controlling the flow of immigration.

It didn't seem to matter what branch of government they were in. It didn't matter which party they belonged to. The political elite refused to deal with an issue the majority of American voters wanted addressed.

The people reacted so negatively that the phony immigration bill died.

For several weeks afterward, congressmen and women appeared on the sympathetic media having temper tantrums.

Their reaction seemed to be, "How dare these people tell us what is good for the country?"

The politicians knew what the voters wanted. They presented themselves as the candidates who would be tougher on immigration than their opponents. They simply refused to do it when elected.

Another example: The government recently opened a $621 million Capitol Visitor Center, which, of course, cost triple its original budget and was years behind schedule.

It was opened with a huge ceremony with lots of leading politicians present. Only two things were missing. First, none of the people who paid for it were invited, and second, evidently there was none of the offensive body odor that would be present if they had been present.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid noted he could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol, but that was no longer to be the case thanks to this new building. In addition, other offensive effluence of the common classes could be handled. "We have many bathrooms here, as you can see," Reid continued.

That about sums up our Nannies; your stuff stinks, theirs doesn't.

It is interesting to see how the Great Nanny State has treated its own citizens when those same citizens refuse to become beholden to the government, and their numbers are not great enough to influence national policy.

That rapidly is becoming the fate of people who pay income tax. In Obama's version of the Nanny State, only unimportant people pay taxes.

Does anyone else in the Republic care? No. More than half of us are getting government benefits in one form or another. Another large group is so poorly educated that they can't tell the difference between a million and a billion and believe everything they hear on the nightly news.

Many don't believe in Santa Claus, and some aren't too sure about God, but they are absolutely convinced that the federal government can give them things by magic, and lead them to the promised land through temporal salvation.

The rest of us are rapidly becoming agnostic.

The government is not only not God and its leaders are not saviors, but it may not even be our friend.

John Locke's 1690 statement could have been spoken yesterday by millions of Americans. He said, "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

As one Nevada newspaper publisher put it a few years ago, "It's too late to vote, and too soon to shoot."